Free Republic

Compares al Qaeda to junior varsity team putting on Lakers jerseys: "That doesn't make them Kobe Bryant." In his New Yorker interview published over the weekend, President Obama stated that current Al Qaeda was “jayvee” – and said that his analogy was often used around the White House. “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama said. He then added, “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is...

But for all its echoes, the bloodshed that has engulfed Iraq, Lebanon and Syria in the past two weeks exposes something new and destabilizing: the emergence of a post-American Middle East in which no broker has the power, or the will, to contain the region’s sectarian hatreds. Amid this vacuum, fanatical Islamists have flourished in Iraq and Syria under the banner of Al Qaeda, as the two countries’ conflicts amplify each other and foster ever-deeper radicalism.

Hasn't the line for years from the U.S. government and its allies been that al Qaeda is on the run, that its fiercest fighting ability has been weakened by U.S. strikes? That truth is far more complex, of course. The terror group's manpower has increased in recent years, it has gained control of more territory in North Africa and the Middle East and is taking a different approach to death, according to top lawmakers privy to high-level intelligence and experts who have observed al Qaeda's activities since September 11.

Speaking to the BBC's Jeremy Bowen, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said terrorism would flourish everywhere if the US attacked Syria Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad also told the BBC that armed groups backed by America - not Syrian troops - had used chemical weapons. The US says it has evidence that Damascus used the nerve agent sarin in a deadly attack in August Mr Mekdad told the BBC's Jeremy Bowen in Damascus: "Any attack against Syria is support for al-Qaeda and its affiliates, whether Jabat al-Nusra or the State of Islam in Syria and Iraq." Jabat al-Nusra...

The stunning events of September 11, 2001, were a potential template for future terrorist attacks. But since then, al-Qaida and its affiliates have been unable to mount a similar encore in the United States. The foiled Times Square attack may be a sign that these groups have been forced to shift tactics to smaller operations that are less spectacular, but are also harder to detect. Former CIA counterterrorism chief Robert Grenier says the failed Times Square bombing last Saturday may indicate that al-Qaida and its allies have abandoned more grandiose plans for the United States and are emphasizing smaller but...